U.S. Champs day 2. I felt much, much better today, mentally. It felt like my mind was twice as engaged as it was yesterday. While I had a few moments of wanting to relax or my attention drifting, I was able to catch it quickly (there's a physical feeling associated with this urgent realization of the need to refocus--sort of like the nervous flush of embarassment) and brought my attention back. I think my mental problems yesterday may have resulted from my brain being asleep, due to the time difference and the 10:01 start time. I'm rarely even awake at 7 AM Pacific time!

Anyway, today's run was quite good, although it was, in retrospect, very cautious--maybe too cautious. I never felt like I was easily mentally and physically flowing/bursting through the course, as happens on my best orienteering days, but I was just happy to improve so much from yesterday. I knew before I started that Wyatt had run 82, so I would have to run 75-76 to beat him for the weekend. In the early part of the course, I was a bit distracted by this thought, but I settled down and focussed better in the middle. As I approached the hour mark, it became clear that I would not be able to overtake Wyatt in the U.S. Champs standings, and I had to give a bit of extra effort to keep my speed up.

I had blisters on my left heel from wearing the new VJ Twisters yesterday, and they hurt during my run, especially after the bandage and tape slipped down. Otherwise, I felt good physically, and I had reserve capacity in my legs. A few minutes after finishing, the soreness in my lower back from running stooped over yesterday returned. Placed 3rd overall and U.S. today, and 4th U.S. Champs eligible overall. Winsplits

Warm-up running before U.S. Classic Champs day 1. I had decided that my performance was suffering sometimes due to my warm-up runs being too short, so I'm happy that I ran for over 10 minutes before this race.

U.S. Classic Champs day 1 and World Ranking Event. The course was hard right from the start, and I picked a poor route (to the right: trail to ridge) to control #1 and tentatively stumbled into it. The next few controls went mostly okay, with some mistakes, but I wasn't feeling in my element in this terrain. I caught Wil Smith 4 minutes, and Lachezar Iliev caught me 4 minutes, and we ran through some controls loosely together, bumbles and all. Lacho missed control 11, and Wil and I got ahead and then split to #12. His straight route put him about a minute ahead, then I made a poor route choice from 12-13 and--more detrimentally--shut my brain off for a while. This resulted in a severe loss of map contact and a protracted relocation process, which set me back about 10 minutes on this leg. I tried to keep it together mentally for the rest of the run, although it was hard to motivate myself to push really hard after blowing it so badly. I mostly ran okay but leaked a bit of time due to sloppiness or slowness on each leg. I had stopped drinking at the water controls prematurely, thinking that I would be done sooner, so I was a bit dehydrated at the end, and my hamstrings seized a few minutes from the finish, going to control 19, after which I eased up to improve my odds of making it in without having to stop and stretch again. Placed 10th overall, 6th U.S. Champs eligible. Winsplits

U.S. Classic Champs model event at Prince William Forest Park. The terrain was green, with lots of greenbriar, holly and laurel, which greatly reduced the visibility and runnability. I also navigated poorly, not keeping good map contact, not visualizing the terrain well, and not planning ahead. I resolved to do better a little later at the sprint model event.

U.S. Champs sprint model event. I orienteered better than I had in the classic model but still not well. I sprained my left ankle badly enough that I had to walk for 20-30 seconds, but I was able to resume jogging after that, and the pain went away within several minutes after that. My new O-shoes were stiff and uncomfortable, and they hurt the protuberance of my right heel significantly.

U.S. Sprint Champs. I had a good run, with one true miss (~10 sec.) and only a few other small bobbles and hesitations. It didn't have the squeaky-clean feeling of a great run while I was doing it, but my legs felt strong in the forest, and it was good enough for the win.

I forgot to clear and check my SI card at the start, so I ran back and did that, and started only 20 seconds ahead of Lachezar Iliev, who came within a second or two of catching me on the short legs early in the course (around #8 was closest, I think). From the start and for the first third of my race, I thought about how screwed up it was that this happened and how it might unfairly help me if he overtook me, and I hoped I would be able to run fast enough to keep him behind me. Fortunately, I was able to stay in front of him at all times and--with the exception of my 10 second miss on control 6, which I corrected without breaking stride--I didn't make mistakes because of the pressure. I gapped him on the long leg from 9 to 10 and wasn't aware of him behind me after that.

After the race, my right heel was quite inflamed from the new shoe. I taped my left ankle, and it neither turned again nor was painful at all during or after the race--whew!

Ran around the roads and regional paths near BWI airport: route. I felt pretty good, although my legs felt fatigued up the hills in the second half of the run. Midway through the run, I stepped in a hole running on some grass, and I nearly sprained my ankle.

At night, from the bottom of Interlaken Park, I ran the BEAST #3 orienteering course from this year, with an additional side trip or two and a few minutes out and back to the Park from the car. I also did 4 x 45 seconds hard surges during the run. I didn't do the hard runs at a regular interval, but I always had at least 1:30 jogging recovery in between.

Ran to Meadowbrook, ran the O course from a training event I organized some time ago (logged separately), then ran back home. I felt pretty good for most of the run, aside from the usual left hamstring pains.